gard me! Be a man, Matthis, look! look boldly! not even
his bones are left! Now, away with the belt--pocket the gold--that's
right! No one will ever know. The proofs are gone forever!

DR. F. What more shall he be asked?

JUDGE. No more. Wake him and let him see himself. [MATTHIS _sits in the
chair as at first_.]

DR. F. Awake! I will it.

MAT. Where am I? Ah, yes--what have I done? Wretch! I have confessed it
all! I am a lost man!

JUDGE. You stand self-condemned! Inasmuch as Hans Matthis, on the
morning of the 25th of December, 1853, between the hours of midnight and
one o'clock, committed the crime of murder and highway robbery upon the
person of Baruch Koweski, with malice prepense, we condemn him to be
hanged by the neck till death shall ensue. And may Heaven have mercy on
his soul! Usher, let the executioner appear and take charge of the
condemned. [_Curtain._

THE LADY OF LYONS

ROBERT BULWER LYTTON

ACT II, SCENE I

CHARACTERS: Pauline Deschappelles, the beautiful daughter and
heiress of an aspiring merchant of Lyons, France; Claude Melnotte,
the gardener's son, madly in love with Pauline.

Pauline aspires to an alliance with some prince or nobleman.
Melnotte in the hope of winning her uses his small inheritance in
educating himself and becomes an accomplished scholar, a skillful
musician, a poet, and an artist. He pours forth his worship in a
poem, but his suit is rejected and he is subjected to violent
insult. Stung to remorse he enters into a plot to personate a
prince, woo her in that guise, and take her as a bride to his
mother's cottage on their wedding night. And, in the faint hope of
winning her as a prince and keeping her love as an untitled man
after he has revealed his identity, Melnotte enters into a binding
compact.

Scene: The garden of M. Deschappelles' house at Lyons.

_Enter_ MELNOTTE _as the Prince of Como, leading_ PAULINE

MEL. You can be proud of your connection with one who owes his position
to merit--not birth.

PAULINE. Why, yes; but still--

MEL. Still what, Pauline?

PAULINE. There is something glorious in the heritage of command. A man
who has ancestors is like a representative of the past.

MEL. True; but, like other representatives, nine times out of ten he is
a silent member. Ah, Pauline! not to the past, but to the future, looks
true nobility, and finds its blazon in posterit